


Tacet: Night

by Marguerite



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s03e22 Posse Comitatus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2019-05-30 17:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15101276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marguerite/pseuds/Marguerite
Summary: "Tomorrow she will belong to the cameras, to a nation that will think it's a shame someone died and then go back to their breakfasts."





	Tacet: Night

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

TACET I: NIGHT

Classification: Post-ep for "Posse Comitatus." CJ POV.  
Summary: "Tomorrow she will belong to the cameras, to a nation that will think it's a shame someone died and then go back to their breakfasts."

Tacet: Musical term meaning to remain silent, usually for an entire movement of  
a longer work.

***  
Tacet I: Night  
***

Some forty blocks from where she sits, a man's body is growing cold. Lips that had brushed hers so tantalizingly, so fleetingly, are hardening and turning gray-blue like the wings of the pigeons that gather at her feet. They flock to her in hopes of a handout. Since she has nothing to offer them but salt water and carbon dioxide they scurry away on their dusty pink toes.

There's only this one chance to let it out before someone finds her and turns her back into the Press Secretary she's not sure she ever wanted to be, the one who can spout facts without injecting any of herself into them, the one who can keep a poker face when the world's going to hell around her. It won't be long before someone recognizes her or someone is sent to retrieve her. By the time the police take the pictures - does she have a picture of him, other than what's in her mind? - and zip him into a plastic bag, she'll be back at the theatre, back in the motorcade. Back.

You have to go back.

That comes from Ron Butterfield. She doesn't look at him, doesn't want to see the expression on his face. For him the loss is professional - guys in the Service don't go down in a convenience store robbery. He is as unprepared as she. Maybe it's personal for him, too. Maybe he liked Simon's snarky wit, or maybe the guys who were at Rosslyn that night were like a fraternity. Maybe he's going to mourn Simon in his own way, or maybe he wants to mourn with her.

CJ shakes her head, doesn't rise from the bench. There may still be a few tears left, and she will not allow anyone in their party to see them. Tomorrow she will belong to the cameras, to a nation that will think it's a shame someone died and then go back to their breakfasts. She will always belong to the President and Leo and all of them. But tonight she belongs only to herself and her grief.

Ron retreats into the crowd. Tactful. Quiet.

The neon lights are bright on Broadway, and they are changing the colors of her gown. Black, then blue. Blue, then silver, then turning red and orange and purple. Simon had seen her trying on the gown, had liked what he'd seen. She could tell from the way his eyes widened and he started breathing through his mouth.

Was his mouth frozen in a cry that he'd never finished? Were his eyes still open, or had some brotherly hand reached down to slide the lids together? Where was the gun she'd fired at the range, the one that had heated up her slim hands and sent her reeling backward, and why hadn't it saved him?

She's not alone on the bench anymore. At first she thinks it's Carol or Margaret, sent by Butterfield to bring her back into the fold, but the three women had shared a bottle of jasmine-scented cologne in the ladies' room of the theatre. This isn't jasmine. It's eau de despair.

CJ turns her head just enough to see the leathery woman on her left. She wears torn jeans that are two sizes too large, mismatched shoes, and a thin, dirty t-shirt that says she loves New York. CJ's age, or younger, or older, impossible to calculate. She'd have to be examined from the inside, like counting the rings of a tree. The only thing CJ knows is that she's cold.

Simon's cold by now, isn't he? The body's temperature drops quickly after death. Soft hands turn rigid. Rigor mortis. Stiff and cold, but at least he doesn't feel anything anymore. God. Simon. Not like this living, breathing woman, whose thin frame lacks CJ's tone and is just that, thin, too thin to support the unfed organs within. They gaze at one another for uncounted minutes. The woman obviously needs money, but CJ carries none with her when she's in the motorcade.

Tonight she'd come with a shawl and Simon. The shawl had been useless against the wet night so she'd borrowed Margaret's leather jacket to sneak out for some air before the play, once upon a time when Simon was a possibility and she'd finally, finally, been able to kiss him.

The woman by her side continues to stare at her. CJ tells her she's sorry by holding out her empty hands, then she shrugs out of the wrap and puts it softly around the woman's shoulders. Hopes it'll do more good where it is.

Tonight she'd come with a shawl and Simon, and it's her destiny to leave both behind.

There's something lucid in the shining blue eyes that says thank you, that understands CJ has given all she has, then the woman scurries away just as the pigeons had done. She turns once, cocks her head as if trying to comprehend the drying tears on CJ's face, then melts into the throng.

She won't cry in front of them, especially not Toby, who sidles up behind her and puts his hands on her shoulders. He doesn't say anything except that he'd have come even if Ron hadn't sent him.

Her body responds by sitting up a little straighter and she pushes her shoulders back. Toby's warm, dry hands remain in place against her chilly skin. He doesn't say he's sorry, just squeezes a little tighter against the rigid muscles, runs his thumbs in circles to loosen them a little. CJ breathes as deeply as her aching lungs will allow, takes in the spring air that she will forever associate with sorrow.

Can we get rid of spring? she asks Toby.

She never wants to live through another one. Rosslyn, a drunk driver, and tonight some punks have rendered the season unbearable. Josh had been along for the ride and the President had spoken brilliantly. Mrs. Landingham had bought a shiny new car. Simon had craved a piece of candy. They'd found it by his side, Ron had said, and roses were scattered around him, red and white, blood and purity, and now they were all painted red by his blood.

There's a lump in her throat that she can't swallow down. Toby's hands move to the back of her neck, massaging the base of her skull, but that makes it worse. It loosens the dam when she can't afford to let one drop spill. Not while he's watching her. CJ pulls away, leaning over with her face in her hands, controlling each breath.

He gets it, just as he has always done, but before he walks away he drapes his tuxedo jacket over her. She can hear his dress shoes shuffling a few steps away. She can also hear him unwrap a piece of gum - he's trying to give up cigars. He's taken a few steps away but he'll be there when she's done.

It's sweet agony to be, for just this brief time, an Ordinary Woman instead of Claudia Jean Cregg, Press Secretary. Simon, Simon, I'm so sorry, she keens in her own head as she rocks back and forth with her arms crossed over her belly. Tears stain her gown, the one she'd worn in defiance of her stalker and Simon. Her stalker is alive, protected from harm, but Simon is gone forever. It's not right, it's not right, it's not right.

Her stalker is in a warm prison cell, with three meals a day and free legal representation, but Simon is on a metal slab somewhere, naked and helpless. And cold. Simon's so cold.

That ends it for her, freezes the blood and tears and lets her stand up even though her ankles wobble. She looks around for Toby, indicating with a nod of her head that she's ready for him. He comes back to her, his hands in his pockets, looking at her with such compassion that her knees and her resolve weaken and she has to sit down again. She lets him sit beside her, good, solid Toby who's not going to ever, ever leave her.

Toby doesn't always speak in words, so tonight he reminds her with gentle strokes of her windblown hair that it won't always feel like this. She clutches his jacket around her and tries to steel her body so it won't collapse when Leo cups her cheek or the President says something kind, so that her tears won't boil over as Sam puts his arms around her and tells her, callow, kind boy that he is, that it's going to be all right.

Toby's hand moves to her shoulder, squeezes with warm gentleness. They have to go in a minute but he'll be at her side, won't leave her alone with her grief and her desperation. Won't let the others practice their clumsy sympathy on her, won't let the motorcade pass the place where Simon died.

Sirens and lights will herald their departure. They will herald Simon's departure, too, some forty blocks from where she sits.

***  
END  
***

Thanks, Ria, for the commentary and the late-night chats. :)

Feedback is welcome.


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